Erev Shabbos Jewish Blogging (kind of like Friday Cat Blogging, but with fewer cats and more Jews)

[gnomi]

Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg of New York is considering regulating against metzitzah b'peh, which the Times describes as the rite during which the mohel "sucks the blood from the circumcision wound to clean it." When mabfan told me of the Times article, the following exchange occurred:

gnomi: This might be a problem.
gnomi: Just in general.
mabfan: hm
gnomi: I mean, Bloomberg regulating against brisses can't go well.
mabfan: Nope.
mabfan: I have his home phone number if you want to call him
mabfan: He's in the book
gnomi: Heh. "Hello, Mr. Mayor? I don't live in New York, but I think you're going to cause yourself a lot of trouble if you regulate against brisses."

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there isn't a better way than regulation to go about this: I mean, most mohels today don't use b'peh, and those that do tend to use a glass tube to do it with so there is no actual contact. I would hope that the few holdouts for traditional form b'peh would be convinced by the hepatitis transmission that all the folks who've been against it for the past two centuries were right.

[cheshyre]

Wouldn't something like that immediately set up a first-amendment challenge, regulating religious practice?

[sethg]

If such a regulation were passed and it were challenged in the courts, the city could argue that it's based on a compelling state interest, namely, preventing the transmission of infectious diseases to infants. Judging from Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the courts could go either way. The city would have to make a very strong case that disease transmission was a real problem and that their regulation placed the fewest restrictions on religious practice necessary to deal with the problem.

[sethg]

First, the mayor is not planning to forbid metzitzah b'peh; some of the chassidim are just upset because the Health Department is discouraging the practice, which involves putting one's mouth directly on the, umm, circumcision site. The Health Department is concerned about reports of herpes being spread through this method; the chassidim think the risk of this happening is acceptably low.

Second, The prevailing practice among misnagdim is to do the metzitzah through a tube, to prevent direct contact of bodily fluids, and the RCA recommends doing it this way. See Hirhurim for more details on the halakhic issues; scroll down to "Metzitzah I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII" on the "Jewish Pracice" section of the sidebar and follow the links.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

First, the mayor is not planning to forbid metzitzah b'peh

Please note -- I never said he was. I just reported the fact that the Times said he's considering regulation.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

I realize I'm a shikseh and may be misinformed, but I thought that Jewish dietary laws prohibited the consumption of blood.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

There's a spit/swallow joke to be made there, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it....unless I just did. Heh.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

There's a spit/swallow joke to be made there

Why yes, yes there is.

And, if I recall correctly, that is in fact some of the actual answer.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

They do indeed. This is an exception for reasons which I'm sure someone will explain better than I can, since I don't know all the halacha involved.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly , there's no issue here, since they're not swallowing it. And, in fact, if I remember the issue around Jewish vampires correctly (and, perhaps, sethg_prime can verify, since I seem to recall him doing research into this), the issue is swallowing blood of a certain volume that has actually flowed from the person. Thus, a Jewish vampire doesn't have a because at no time does the blood flow from the victim and get exposed to air. And more to a practical matter, if you cut your finger while chopping a carrot, say, you could stick your finger in your mouth before too much blood has emerged. Alternately, if your gums bleed while you're brushing your teeth, you are permitted to swallow rather than having to spit it out.

[somehedgehog.livejournal.com]

From a strictly legal standpoint, I am somewhat surprised that Bloomberg is not invoking existing law to prevent this practice, if he's concerned about it. There is a long-standing legal precedent of the state intervening if they believe that the religious obligations of parents could have repercussions on the health of minor children.

I am not claiming to know what the morally correct thing to do would be in this case, nor am I claiming that I believe the practice carries significant risk; simply that if Bloomberg wants to ban this practice, the legal precedent already exists. I was raised by wolves medical malpractice attorneys, who delivered their share of court orders under that precedent to insist that certain medical procedures be administered to minor children in spite of parental religious objection. I imagine he does not want to offend the religious community, but I imagine it's offensive to have an official statement released declaring a particular practice of a group risky. I imagine if he tries to have it both ways, he may well end up upsetting more people than if he was willing either to ban the procedure as dangerous or openly declare it an insignificant risk.